The little red schoolhouse, like the buffalo and the horse and buggy, is becoming a dim historical memory. Once upon a time it was the hub of the community, the haven of learning, and the wellspring of all the virtues. Our forefathers there learned the three R's and the lessons of life that made them the leaders of America for a century and a half.
They were of a pattern, clapboard or brick, painted red, four-square with a row of high windows on two sides, a small cupola with a bell to call the pupils in from the farms. Two outhouses, one for the boys and one for the girls, stood in opposite corners of the schoolyard. The schoolroom was not designed to make rosy the road to learning—a big pot-bellied stove in the center aisle, a row of desks or benches on either side, the teacher's desk up front on a little platform, with a blackboard behind.
There were hooks along the back wall for clothes and a shelf for the lunch boxes. There too was the water pail, with long-handled dipper-all drank from the same canteen. There was a McGuffey "ABC Chart" near the teacher's desk, a map or two on the wall, and a globe to show that the world was round.
The smaller pupils sat up front and progressed by age to the rear of the room. The rear desks were occupied mostly by boys, for only a very daring girl would care to be a part of the horseplay that went on there when the teacher's back was turned. One of the pastimes was shooting paper wads at the ceiling. Making a paper wad of the right consistency was an art. A scrap of paper was chewed until it became a pulpy mass and then propelled to the ceiling by the thumb. If it were expertly done, it stuck, dried out, and in time was covered with fly-specks and dust and became a permanent part of the décor. There were only a few wads in the front of the room, for here the small boys were under close surveillance, and usually lacked the technique and strength of thumb. Ages ranged from a precocious five to sixteen and up, the latter ambitious lads who wanted all the learning they could get, or came in during the winter months when work was slack on the farm. The school was a clubhouse for them, and an opportunity for juvenile courting.
The ability to read determined, roughly, the class you were in. Some schools took you to the sixth reader. A bright reader of eight might progress through two or even three readers in a year and find herself (for some unknown reason the good readers were always girls) reciting with classmates twice her age. On the other hand, a lazy or dull reader of sixteen might not have progressed further than the third reader. Learning was a mark of the sissy in those days and the star pupil had to endure a good deal of teasing and ridicule.
The curriculum was simple-reading, writing and arithmetic, the old standbys, and history and geography. Fancy subjects, like science, were unknown. There was no library and the school with a fat Webster's was considered lucky. Every pupil had a slate, for paper tablets were expensive and were used only on special occasions, like essays to be done at home.
The best-remembered teachers were the old maids, dedicated to teaching, loving youngsters, but too often ill-trained and poorly educated. The men teachers were usually serious young men who resorted too frequently to the birch rod. They boarded at a farmhouse near the school, went early to start the fire, sweep out, and clean the blackboards. A good one with a long tenure was paid as much as thirty dollars a month; a beginner started at twenty dollars.
The midmorning and midafternoon recesses, and the lunch hour, were the high spots of the day. The half-hour recess afforded just enough time for a game of three-corner-cat. In marble season the boys, and the occasional tomboy, smoothed off a place in front of the door and played for keeps. Some teachers regarded this as gambling, and forbade the game. There was crack-the-whip, the biggest boy at one end, the smallest, who was the cracker of the whip, at the other. In winter the hardiest played fox-and-rabbit in the snow; the girls and the small boys played parlor games around the hot stove.
Those who attended a country school may have forgotten in time the sums and the history they once learned there, but they never forget the full-bodied aroma of a schoolroom on a cold winter day, with the stove glowing red-hot. This aroma was compounded of the wet jackets drying out on the woodbox, the remnants of bygone lunches, the dust and cobwebs on the ceiling, the musty tang gathered in the tight room during the summer. All these added up to an unforgettable mixture that forever remained in memory.
Unforgettable too was the long walk. Fortunate were those who lived on farms adjoining the schoolhouse. Some walked through winter rain and snow over miles of muddy roads. In winter darkness fell before the home farm was reached. This was one of the reasons why the products of the little red schoolhouse were so successful. Education came the hard way, you didn't take it lightly, and it stuck with you.
An Old-fashioned Schoolhouse Students Can Visit!
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